From Jughead's Crown to Your Insignificant Town

An inconvenient truth

I have been a little behind with my magazines on eBay. So I finally sold a Rolling Stone from June the other day. I tend not to read the magazines that I sell. I am busy, and people can tell they've been thumbed through. However, this article forced me inside:

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen

It's long, but interesting. Key points include a Democratic-dominated precinct with 7% voter turnout and a Republican-dominated precinct with 99.85% voter turnout. Unlike in 2000, I was convinced that Dubya had somehow earned this victory, but I was apparently wrong.

Sure, in this article there are some liberties taken (no pun intended) when analyzing the data, which I found unnecessary because the data alone would have been enough to make a good case for John Kerry winning, but if you have half a brain you can read past the political bent that this article shoots out.

Reading this brought me to a different conclusion however: We are worse off for this article having been written.

Let's look at it this way. This issue went on newsstands more than a month ago. Something of this magnitude should have had a lot of attention called to it if people really cared about their democracy. I would have heard about it on the news or in the paper or, well, something! Just because P.J. O'Rourke didn't write it doesn't mean it's crap. So why are we worse off?

There are two angles to explain this with. First, let's look at the people that have thought all along that something was fishy about the 2004 election, or maybe just people in general that remember 2000 and wondered about 2004's. If you read this and get outraged, and we're talking a Tony Bruno level of outrage, you expect to find a place to share your outrage. Whether this is a talk show on the radio, a march to Washington or some other sort of demonstration, you have to think you aren't alone. Well, I didn't hear anything about anything happening. If you feel strongly about something, and no one around you cares (happens to me all the time -- that's what makes me me), you start to question yourself and your values, because surely you wouldn't have isolating values that no one agrees with, right?

Secondly, let's look at those who voted for the president in 2004 and those that believe the election was accurate (specifically still believing this after reading this article). These people read the article and see no uproar. The powers that be see this article, see no uproar and realize that they totally got away with something! In addition, what works once will work again. And this is hardly the first time that this has occurred in politics, let alone American politics. So expect this to happen again. And again.

In the end, the repressed feel more repressed, and the upper hand sees validation of their effort from a lack of response from the other side, all from the publication of this story. Despite good intentions, the opposite effect has been achieved.

Honestly, this article should be seen as a status quo update of politics. The pragmatist should not have been outraged because he knows this happens, but most people are not pragmatic.

I don't know what the answer is. It isn't even that people are stupid (although many sure are). People are much more selfish than they claim to be, and the GOP does more to help the selfish than the Democrats do. Granted, this is a huge generalization, but generalization is what wins elections.

Published Sunday, July 16, 2006 10:16 AM by Jughead